practice

Few days ago responded to post on turning finials and mentioned start turning them between centers. Whether use spur drive/live center or chuck/live center will learn a lot. Besides turning a pleasing form finial need to learn about support while turning. Support comes from wood thickness, tailstock and hand support.

When turning a finial always strive to get as close to off the tool finish as possible. Final elements need to look sharp and crisp and not rounded over with sandpaper.

I was Fooling around yesterday afternoon with small piece of wood turning a finial between centers. No, not my best work and will be going in firewood bag have no plan to use it. While okay for message board posting if doing a show & tell or instant gallery might turn several before mounting on a turning.

13 replies so far

After practice, turning finials eventually will want to start thinking about proportion and scale. Essentially, want your finial adding harmony to piece you are mounting it on. I still go by eye and often disappointed with my results. One of these days will break out my homemade Fibonacci gauge before glue sets up.

Started turning long graceful finials for mounting on bottom of Christmas ornaments. Soon learned those did not look good or go on a Christmas tree that well. So need a stand and place on mantle or table. Now turn short finials for Christmas ornaments. I had same experience with finials on box lids so shorten those too!

Plenty of good examples of finials on line, just print off a picture of one you would like to try and have fun with it.

I turned my second ever finial today, just for practice. I turned between centers, just left a little nub to hold it on at both ends. It was a great chance to get more skew practice, which I always need.

Jerry wasting wood and learning how to turn big part of the process! All methods of holding wood on a lathe force you to think about amount of that waste before you start!

Since most lathes come with drive & live center does not cost more to waste wood to practice. My optional two prong drive center cost less than $30.

Real lesson from my original post is pleasing form, support, and close to off tool finish as possible. In my second post making a finial that is in harmony with whatever you are mounting it on.

Collet chucks make a nice addition to your tool collection many folks buy a basic chuck and shop around for collets. When started turning not un-common for folks including myself to make their own wood collet chucks for special purposes. Can still find instructions for making a collet chuck on line.

I have the set from PSI and am pretty happy with it. It’s a bit stiff and difficult to tighten fully at times. Before I got that, I had a couple of collets that I’d made out of PVC and a hose clamp. They worked well, but only for certain sizes (1/2 and 3/4 inch).

I save stuff like this, never know when you have need to use it for some odd project. That said you will now have to be creative and find a storage solution as we all seem to suffer from this disease, shopnotbigenough. (Laughing)

Whole idea here is practice Gerry! Use a simple method to hold your wood, support while turning, work on off tool finish, and creating a pleasing form without sanding away elements. With practice eventually comes proportion and scale.

Gerry, never got around to selecting wood for real application. Okay whether using domestic or exotic, do not use wood with flaws like shown in my pictures. We never got around to color your domestic wood to look like ebony or ivory too!

I’m not disagreeing with you … I get it. Practice is good. All I am saying is that use of a collet chuck provides a tighter, firmer hold on small tenons and can result in a more graceful, delicate finial.

-- Gerry -- "I don't plan to ever really grow up ... I'm just going to learn how to act in public!"